The People's Critic
Film reviews for those who prize brevitySCROOGE (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951)
More often than not, an adaptation that clings to its source will fail, undercut by a stolid, po-faced reverence that leaves its audience in a similar frame of mind. So, what makes Scrooge (PC rating: 5/5) the finest film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is precisely its freer handling of the material. In fact, not only do director Hurst and screenwriter Noel Langley omit bits of Dickens’ tale, but they dare to add in characters and scenes, further fleshing out one of literature’s most enduring characters, Ebenezer Scrooge. The result — particularly when paired with Alastair Sim’s spot-on portrayal of the miser-turned-altruist — is a testimony to the paradoxical art of adaptation: the most faithful renderings imbibe the spirit, rather than obey the letter, of the original.
TROUBLE THE WATER (dir. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, 2008)
A fascinating (and frequently disturbing) documentary about a couple from the 9th Ward in New Orleans, who “rode out” Hurricane Katrina and had the presence of mind to tape the ordeal. The film’s first half-hour is gripping stuff, as the storm approaches and then arrives, leaving the residents to seek shelter in attics and vacant apartment buildings. The remainder details their troubles after Katrina moves through, as the residents of the 9th Ward come to realize that, literally, they are on their own. At this point, the film takes on a more political tone–a justifiable move, it seems, but one that compromises its intensity. Nevertheless, this is documentary filmmaking at its best. PC rating: 5/5.
Making Up For Lost Time
The PC has been out of pocket lately, working on lesson plans, taking a hubristic stab at a Dostoevsky-meets-McCarthy-meets-O’Connor novel, and just generally neglecting to review films. However, he has been watching movies and so would like offer a quick run-down of what he has seen (complete with ratings). He apologizes in advance for the lack of detail, but figures this is the best way to catch up:
- Two Lovers (dir. James Gray, 2008): 4.5/5
- We Own the Night (dir. James Gray, 2007): 3.5/5
- The Yards (dir. James Gray, 2000): 4.5/5 (In general, Gray seems to borrow a lot from Scorsese, but that’s a good thing)
- Henry Poole Is Here (dir. Mark Pellington, 2008): 3.5/5
- Frozen River (dir. Courtney Hunt, 2008): 4.5/5 (Amazing performance here from Melissa Leo)
- Eastern Promises (dir. David Cronenberg, 2007): 5/5 (Interesting, well-acted, and surprisingly underrated)
- Adventureland (dir. Greg Mottola, 2009): 4/5
- Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (dir. Sidney Lumet, 2007): 4.5/5
- In Bruges (dir. Martin McDonagh, 2008): 4/ 5
- Mongol (dir. Sergei Bodrov, 2008): 4/ 5
SUGAR (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, 2008)
Sugar (5/5) is arguably the best baseball movie ever made, not because it features spine-tingling feats of heroism or salty repartee, but because it intimately contextualizes both the game and the men who play it. Indeed, Miguel “Sugar” Santos is a Dominican pitching prospect, who arrives in the U.S. with hopes of big-league stardom, but soon finds the linguistic isolation and the intense pressure of minor league life hard to bear. Thus co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck flesh out a character of quiet, compelling depth; in doing so, moreover, they bring to light a story that is seldom heard.
GOODBYE SOLO (dir. Ramin Bahrani, 2008)
Set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Goodbye Solo (PC rating: 4.5/5) tells the story of a genial Senegalese taxi driver, Solo, and his attempts to befriend one of his clients, William–an elderly man, whose melancholic manner and ominous requests convince Solo that he is going to kill himself. As usual, director Ramin Bahrani crafts a sensitive, reflective film, which features characters who are struggling to come to terms with their lives. And though it hardly leaves the viewer with an “answer” per se, it ultimately suggests that, when human tragedy cannot be prevented, it must at least be felt…and thus learned from.
WENDY AND LUCY (dir. Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
The story of a young vagrant, whose only apparent hope (a cross-country move to Alaska) is impeded by economic misfortune, Wendy and Lucy (PC rating: 4/5) has been hailed as a “political” film, which realistically chronicles the trials of America’s poor. And, in a sense, that is true: director Kelly Reichardt has stripped the narrative to the bone, focusing chiefly on Wendy’s struggles to endure on a shoestring budget–a doomed endeavor, the film suggests, in a country in which “every man is for himself.” And yet, Wendy and Lucy seems content to treat Wendy and her dog, Lucy, as mere symbols, for it is not so much concerned with where they have been or where they are going as the fact that they are. It stands, then, as an important political reminder, which Reichardt, for all of her artistry, nevertheless fails to convert into a fully human, political story.
THE CLASS (dir. Laurent Cantet, 2008)
If films about teachers do, in fact, constitute a genre, then Laurent Cantet’s The Class (PC rating: 4/5) is an obvious attempt to subvert it. Here there are no against-the-odds comeback stories or maudlin I-couldn’t-have-done-it-without-you climaxes, but, rather, only a gritty, documentary-like look at life in an inner-city middle school in Paris. Cantet achieves this sense of realism by giving only glimpses into the backgrounds of his main characters; thus the focus, indeed, is on life “between the walls” (the film’s French title, Entre les Murs, is purposeful!) and on the ambiguous scenarios that unfold there everyday.
W. (dir. Oliver Stone, 2008)
As an interpretation of the political career of George W. Bush, Oliver Stone’s W. (PC rating: 3.5/5) seems plausible enough: a likable, if not cerebral, scion of a powerful family, who longs not so much for recognition as acceptance, Bush sees his presidency as an opportunity to legitimate both his father’s legacy and the worldview of “good, simple” Americans; that this is enterprise is doomed to fail, the film also implies, is a function of Bush’s naivete, rather than his viciousness. Thus W. is not a straightforward “hatchet piece,” a fact that might surprise Bush’s supporters, even as it rankles his detractors. What it is, however, is a mediocre film, particularly down the stretch, when it begins to resemble a series of ”political skits” featuring the (banally devious) Bush administration, rather than a drama per se.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
A movie has achieved greatness when the critic struggles to find its flaws, and No Country for Old Men (PC rating: 5/5) is just such a film. A briskly paced thriller, which somehow manages to find the time for tragicomic reflections on life and death, good and evil, it is surely the Coen brothers’ best work to date–indeed, a kind of crystallization of their unique talent. And the flaws? No Country for Old Men might have worked harder to develop some of its characters, but, even then, its excellent cast (led by Javier Bardem, though anchored by Tommy Lee Jones) locates a surplus of depth in the Coens’ suitably laconic script.
VALKYRIE (dir. Bryan Singer, 2008)
In recent years, World War II films have tended to focus on the horrors of the Holocaust and, only by association, the attitudes of the German people toward such atrocities and toward Nazism in general; some fine films have resulted from this formula (perhaps, vor allem, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List), but, at the same time, a fuller picture of the rise and fall of the Third Reich has failed to emerge. The promise of Valkyrie (PC rating: 3.5/5) is that it will begin to redress this problem, but, unfortunately, it is not nearly that ambitious. The tale of Claus von Stauffenberg’s valiant, yet doomed, attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to coordinate an overthrow of the Nazi regime, Valkyrie is suspenseful almost by default; however, its constricted focus on the so-called “20 July” plot fails to bring Stauffenberg and other resistance leaders to life, as if the film were afraid that three-dimensional characters would just get in the way of its nail-biting premise.
